Live data from Hacker News

A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

visa.lafrenchtech.com

421–430 of 751 posts

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had my Engineer's Degrees from ISEP last year and I'm working at Alten since October 2016. My official title is development engineer (Ingénieur d'études). Before that, I've done two six-months internship as a junior java dev. Alten is a technology and engineering consulting company, which means, in the context of the French market, that when a company, need a particular profile (like java dev) to staff a positio…

Sound like a temp agency, ala Accenture. Does it track market rates? I've worked for a company before that took fresh grads, and relied strongly on them never entering the market for themselves and realising what market rate was .

Yes. That's a temp agency (or an Indian consulting company but French, if you're familiar with the concept).

They're know for paying shit, and there are arrangements between agencies to not compete with each other.

Actual salaries at these places have been on a slow downward trend for many years.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#422
post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but my guess is that they pay similarly well.

My guess is that they pay much more.

Well, maybe. I really have no idea. But even if I could get a job there and make more money, I strongly prefer not to leave NYC for the Bay Area.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#423

Raw salary comparisons miss the point : you can't really compare pre-tax salaries between countries with such a completely different taxation and benefits structure. The take home pay certainly is much, much lower in France than in the US, but it comes with access to top-notch free healthcare, free university, pension contributions, 5-7 weeks paid leave and generous unemployment insurance amongst other things. It all…

>but it comes with access to top-notch free healthcare Does it cover stuff like cosmetic dermatology, full dental plan (implants) ? I don't live in France, I lived in different EU countries and every time I needed something the "free health care" meant I had to pay participation fee and wait 6 months walking around appointments and ended up going private clinic. I basically got 0 value out it, considering I'm young a…

>Pension contributions and retirement benefits

I live in the US with H1B. I still pay Social Security, and Medicare/aid every paycheck. Don't you? Isn't it the same as what you said? Paying into a social system that probably won't be in a shape to pay you later?

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be accurately calculating the income taxes, but that's not taking into account the corporate taxes. If a French employer tells you they'll pay you 100k€ annually (just for the sake of the example), you can expect to receive 75k€. (25%, mostly for your retirement plan, social security and unemployment insurance. Mandatory) Then, if you input those 75k in this tool, it will tell you what you can expect to…

42% tax then? Better rate than I get :-/

There is another 25% rate that is paid directly by the company to the state.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#425
Regarding French salaries again : yes they are lower than elsewhere but with some exceptions, French employers are not the problem : they do pay the same price for you as in other European countries, more or less ! The difference is that your average engineer in France costs them around 1.5-2.5 times the total take home pay, because of high, compulsory labor taxes.

In exchange, employees get as standard :

* a top notch, virtually free healthcare system with no concept of exclusions or "pre-conditions"

* Usually no student loans to repay because their higher education was free, unless they went for a private business/engineering school but that's still an order of magnitude cheaper than a US university.

* a comfortable (unsustainable ?) state pension later on.

* unemployment insurance that covers around 70% pay for months.

* 5 weeks holiday + public holidays

* Non San Francisco / London / NYC renting costs (although Paris is quite bad by French standards, and much worse than Berlin)

If you're US-based, think about your monthly budget and what goes towards healthcare/co-pay, student loans, kids college fund, 401k, and building an emergency fund in case you get laid off / severely ill. None of that is strictly required in France (although some of it is available as extra private coverage, and a good idea)

This is why cross-border salary comparisons are pointless, it's really apples & oranges.

I'm French and living in London, and I'd personally rather have the freedom to have a higher take-home pay and contribute towards the above items myself as I see fit. But I'm not fooling myself thinking that because my take-home pay is twice as high each month, the math is as simple as that. I know that I'm so much more on my own here than at home...

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#426
If you want to move to Europe and work for a "leading startup" or a big tech company -- anything established that pays market rates for senior talent -- then you should also ask your favorite immigration lawyer about Germany's Permanent Residency for Highly Talented professionals, aka "Paragraph 19."

This gets you permanent residence, the same thing as a US Green Card. The minimum qualifications IIRC are an advanced degree in something tech/science-y, and a "high" salary in the legitimate job waiting for you anywhere in Germany (meaning you have to get the job first). For scientists the salary limit is lower than for engineers.

But of course the food is much better in France.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#427
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% income tax is the marginal rate. On your 30k, you get 1925€ per month (23k/yr) after corporate tax/social security etc. We call this "net" even though income tax is due on top of that. For income tax, you pay taxes according to the following brackets (on yearly income) : - 0€ to 9700€ : 0% - 9701€ to 26791€ : 14% - 26791€ to 71826€ : 30% That means for a single person with no children, you pay an incone tax of 23…

Am I misunderstanding or did you make a math error? I'm getting: (23000-9700)*.14 = 1862€/yr

Ha, my calculation included my child (counts a 1/2 part). You are right, single person would be ~1800/yr, 150/month

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, a lot of CS people in the US seem to really love the US and say stuff like "it sucks not to be in the US." They usually mention how they can afford everything since they make so much money and how they prefer to work 600 hours a week instead of having forced days off and that health care through Employer is so much better than through government. Admittedly, this was on Reddit, which is just a huge echo cha…

To me (working in London), the biggest difference in France is the attitude towards healthcare : it's not a business, rather a right. I first heard the words "Preexisting condition" when I moved to London and researched private insurance there.

  "the attitude towards healthcare : it's not a business, rather a right"
  "I first heard the words "Preexisting condition" when I moved to London and researched private insurance there."
Might that be a reflection that it's private healthcare in a country which already provides free healthcare?

The human right to healthcare is already catered for in the UK, through the NHS, so private healthcare doesn't have to accommodate the right, it's simply a business.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#429
post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [inciting] people to have no health insurance at all can get you to jail (up to 6 months). As your previous source said, not having health insurance is illegal in France. We're a far cry from your original "saying that you don't need health insurance". You can say that as much as you want. You just can't push other people to put themselves in an illegal situation. > If it is not limitation of freedom of speech, I t…

First, thank you for changing the overall tone of your comment. You assume that the state is always right. I agree it is right in most cases, but not always. And calling arguments like "public safety", like "fighting terrorism", is a way for a government to have more power than it ought to (at least from the point of view of its libertarian citizen). Voting a law should not necessarily close the debate around it. Soc…

I said this in another thread, but I want to make it clear here as well:

> I generally agree that "inciting" is a loosely defined term and I, too, dislike how easy of a tool it can be for political censorship.

I don't particularly like the idea of restrictions on free speech. But I also don't particularly like when people's health and livelihoods, public safety, the earth's climate are all damaged by sleazy tactics from people who want to make a quick buck.

I don't like that said restrictions are a tool that can be abused by those in power ... but isn't that just about everything? Surveillance? Police forces?

We make tradeoffs because our world is not made of absolutes. The US makes those tradeoffs as well, the line is just elsewhere. Being a "terrorism sympathizer" in the US will potentially earn you a free trip to Cuba. And that is also a tool that has been used for political censorship.

When I look at the end result, though, we have a country where abortion is a right and saying "god hates fags" is not. The US is the other way around. I know which outcome I prefer.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#430
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% income tax is the marginal rate. On your 30k, you get 1925€ per month (23k/yr) after corporate tax/social security etc. We call this "net" even though income tax is due on top of that. For income tax, you pay taxes according to the following brackets (on yearly income) : - 0€ to 9700€ : 0% - 9701€ to 26791€ : 14% - 26791€ to 71826€ : 30% That means for a single person with no children, you pay an incone tax of 23…

Am I misunderstanding or did you make a math error? I'm getting: (23000-9700)*.14 = 1862€/yr

He make an error, indeed

In fact, the tax we will be a bit lower than your (correct) calculation, because the calculation should be made on 90% of the income only.

So, the result is 1530 € (there's another insignificant reduction after calculation). And that's an effective 6,6% tax rate.

Post reply on HN